Glacier Park Connection

For the Smith and Lee families the tradition of suimmer employment in Glacier Park began in the early 1920s. Robert L. Smith Jr. worked (primarily as a bellman) for four years at East Galcier Hotel, until he compoleted a Law Degree at the University of Minnesota. His brother, Lloyd, worked as a bus boy at Many Glacier Hotel. Construction had just begun on "Going-To-The-Sun" Road, so riding horses was the only practical way for many to get around inside the park. Then, as ever since, hiking was the only other form of transportation. To enlarge any of the pictures, just left-click on them. Click on your Browser's BACK button to return to this page.

Edna Lee worked a season (1921) at Jasper Park in Alberta, at Lake McDonald in 1922 and subsequently at Many Glacier. Her younger siter, Irene, began at Many Galcier in 1923. Irene became the Dining Room Hostess (the "Indian Maiden") , for which she wore the hotel's costume. The authentic beaded belt she always wore, however, was her own, and is still in the family. She and Edna played the violin and cello for a preacher who conducted Christian services for the Indians. As no one had any money the Indians offered items like the belt, which came into Irene's possession. The fire at left is believed to be a fire of the early Twenties, rather than the 1936 fire which devastated Swiftcurrent Valley. Irene told of the firefighters pumping so much water onto the fire (which burned for weeks) that the water level in Lake McDermott (as Swiftcurrent Lake was called then) went down three feet.

Though Bob and Irene lived in St. Paul and Minneapolis, respectively, they never met before summering in Northwestern Montana. Their first "date" was at Granite Park Chalet, off the High Line Trail. Romance blossomed and they were married in 1928.

The presence of the Tribes and their traditions were much greater in the early days. Mainly the Kootenais on the West side and the Blackfeet on the East . Processions and ceremonies in full regalia were common on and about the East Glacier Hotel grounds

I summarized the story below from "Twisted Tails", by numismatist Robert R. Van Ryzin, Krause Publications, 1995.

John Two Guns was born in 1871 and adopted at an early age by White Calf, a prominent warrior chief who was responsible for many of the Blackfoot Tribe's treaaties. After the death of White Calf

in 1902, Two Guns became a tribal leader. When Two Guns first saw the buffalo/indian-head nickel (released in 1913) he was convinced that it was his own likeness on the coin. However, the sculptor, James Earle Fraser, always insisted that the head was a composite of several models. He specifically named Two Moons (a Cheyenne) and Iron Tail (a Lakota Sioux) and "one or two others" (in his later years, he mostly said, "one onter"). The Great Northern Railroad, always interested in promoting tourism to its Glacier Park Hotels and passenger traffic on its trains, sought to encourage the idea that Two Guns was the model. The argument raged from 1913 to the death of both figures in 1934 and contiues to resurface even now.

The question would seem to have been put to rast by a letter from Fraser to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1931, in which he denied ever having seen Two Guns. But Charles Bevard, an auctioneer who had come into possession of a number of Two Guns' personal effects which led him into extensive historical research on the subject, suspected that the US Government wanted Fraser to "discredit" Two Guns as a coin model because they were afraid of the great influence he had on the tribes.The Chief headed a secret organization known as the Mad Dog Society which was attempting to preserve Blackfoot Heritage. Traditional Indian dances such as the Sun Dance and the Ghost Dance, which had been banned, were again being performed after American Indians received blanket citizenship in 1924. Bevard believed that the US Government feared that Chief Two Guns, like his father, might again take the fierce Blackfoot warriors on the warpath in an attempt to regain their land. Others pointed out that if Fraser had never been able to remember the third model, how could he be certain that it wasn't Two Guns Whitecalf?

"If he wasn't a model for the Buffalo nickel, he was [still] the most famous Indian in the 20th century", Bevard said, "....He had a relationship with non-indians, anyone from presidents on down, and he did a lot of great things for Iindians and he was quite the statesman, and, if nothing else, he should be remenbered for that."